Mr Wentworth's sermon on Easter Sunday was one which he himself long
remembered, though it is doubtful whether any of his congregation had
memories as faithful. To tell the truth, the young man put a black cross
upon it with his blackest ink, a memorial of meaning unknown to anybody
but himself. It was a curious little sermon, such as may still be heard
in some Anglican pulpits. Though he had heart and mind enough to
conceive something of those natural depths of divine significance and
human interest, which are the very essence of the Easter festival, it
was not into these that Mr Wentworth entered in his sermon. He spoke, in
very choice little sentences, of the beneficence of the Church in
appointing such a feast, and of all the beautiful arrangements she had
made for the keeping of it. But even in the speaking, in the excited
state of mind he was in, it occurred to the young man to see, by a
sudden flash of illumination, how much higher, how much more catholic,
after all, his teaching would have been, could he but have once ignored
the Church, and gone direct, as Nature bade, to that empty grave in
which all the hopes of humanity had been entombed. He saw it by gleams
of that perverse light which seemed more Satanic than heavenly in the
moments it chose for shining, while he was preaching his little sermon
about the Church and her beautiful institution of Easter, just as he had
seen the non-importance of his lily-wreath and surplices as he was about
to suffer martyrdom for them. All these circumstances were hard upon the
young man. Looking down straight into the severe iron-grey eyes of his
aunt Leonora, he could not of course so much as modify a single sentence
of the discourse he was uttering, no more than he could permit himself
to slur over a single monotone of the service; but that sudden bewildering
perception that he could have done so much better--that the loftiest
High-Churchism of all might have been consistent enough with
Skelmersdale, had he but gone into the heart of the matter--gave a
bitterness to the deeper, unseen current of the Curate's thoughts.
Besides, it was terrible to feel that he could not abstract himself from
personal concerns even in the most sacred duties. He was conscious that
the two elder sisters went away, and that only poor aunt Dora, her
weak-minded ringlets limp with tears, came tremulous to the altar rails.
When the service was over, and the young priest was disrobing himself,
she came to him and gave a spasmodic, sympathetic, half-reproachful
pressure to his hand. "Oh, Frank, my dear, I did it for the best," said
Miss Dora, with a doleful countenance; and the Perpetual Curate knew
that his doom was sealed. He put the best face he could upon the matter,
having sufficient doubts of his own wisdom to subdue the high temper of
the Wentworths for that moment at least.
"What was it you did for the best?" said the Curate of St Roque's. "I
suppose, after all, it was no such great matter _hearing_ me as you
thought; but I told you I was not an ambitious preacher. This is a day
for worship, not for talk."
"Ah! yes," said Miss Dora; "but oh, Frank, my dear, it is hard upon me,
after all my expectations. It would have been so nice to have had you at
Skelmersdale. I hoped you would marry Julia Trench, and we should all
have been so happy; and perhaps if I had not begged Leonora to come just
now, thinking it would be so nice to take you just in your usual
way--but she must have known sooner or later," said poor aunt Dora,
looking wistfully in his face. "Oh, Frank, I hope you don't think I'm to
blame."
"I never should have married Julia Trench," said the Curate, gloomily.
He did not enter into the question of Miss Dora's guilt or innocence--he
gave a glance at the lilies on the altar, and a sigh. The chances were
he would never marry anybody, but loyalty to Lucy demanded instant
repudiation of any other possible bride. "Where are you going, aunt
Dora; back to the Blue Boar? or will you come with me?" he said, as they
stood together at the door of St Roque's. Mr Wentworth felt as if he had
caught the beginning threads of a good many different lines of thought,
which he would be glad to be alone to work out.
"You'll come back with me to the inn to lunch?" said Miss Dora. "Oh,
Frank, my dear, remember your Christian feelings, and don't make a
breach in the family. It will be bad enough to face your poor dear
father, after he knows what Leonora means to do; and I do so want to
talk to you," said the poor woman, eagerly clinging to his arm. "You
always were fond of your poor aunt Dora, Frank; when you were quite a
little trot you used always to like me best; and in the holiday times,
when you came down from Harrow, I used always to hear all your
troubles. If you would only have confidence in me now!"
"But what if I have no troubles to confide?" said Mr Wentworth; "a man
and a boy are very different things. Come, aunt Dora, I'll see you safe
to your inn. What should I have to grumble about? I have plenty to do,
and it is Easter; and few men can have everything their own way."
"You won't acknowledge that you're vexed," said aunt Dora, almost crying
under her veil, "but I can see it all the same. You always were such a
true Wentworth; but if you only would give in and say that you are
disappointed and angry with us all, I could bear it better, Frank. I
would not feel then that you thought it my fault! And oh, Frank, dear,
you don't consider how disappointed your poor dear aunt Leonora was!
It's just as hard upon us," she continued, pressing his arm in her
eagerness, "as it is upon you. We had all so set our hearts on having
you at Skelmersdale. Don't you think, if you were giving your mind to
it, you might see things in a different light?" with another pressure of
his arm. "Oh, Frank, what does it matter, after all, if the heart is
right, whether you read the service in your natural voice, or give that
little quaver at the end? I am sure, for my part--"
"My dear aunt," said Mr Wentworth, naturally incensed by this manner of
description, "I must be allowed to say that my convictions are fixed,
and not likely to be altered. I am a priest, and you are--a woman." He
stopped short, with perhaps a little bitterness. It was very true she
was a woman, unqualified to teach, but yet she and her sisters were
absolute in Skelmersdale. He made a little gulp of his momentary
irritation, and walked on in silence, with Miss Dora's kind wistful hand
clinging to his arm.
"But, dear Frank among us Protestants, you know, there is no sacerdotal
caste," said Miss Dora, opportunely recollecting some scrap of an Exeter
Hall speech. "We are all kings and priests to God. Oh, Frank, it is
Gerald's example that has led you away. I am sure, before you went to
Oxford you were never at all a ritualist--even Leonora thought you such
a pious boy; and I am sure your good sense must teach you--" faltered
aunt Dora, trying her sister's grand tone.
"Hush, hush; I can't have you begin to argue with me; you are not my
aunt Leonora," said the Curate, half amused in spite of himself. This
encouraged the anxious woman, and, clasping his arm closer than ever,
she poured out all her heart.
"Oh, Frank, if you could only modify your views a little! It is not
that there is any difference between your views and ours, except just
in words, my dear. Flowers are very pretty decorations, and I know you
look very nice in your surplice; and I am sure, for my part, I should
not mind--but then that is not carrying the Word of God to the people,
as Leonora says. If the heart is right, what does it matter about the
altar?" said aunt Dora, unconsciously falling upon the very argument
that had occurred to her nephew's perplexed mind in the pulpit. "Even
though I was in such trouble, I can't tell you what a happiness it was
to take the sacrament from your hands, my dear, dear boy; and but for
these flowers and things that could do nobody any good, poor dear
Leonora, who is very fond of you, though perhaps you don't think it,
could have had that happiness too. Oh, Frank, don't you think you
could give up these things that don't matter? If you were just to tell
Leonora you have been thinking it over, and that you see you've made a
mistake, and that in future--"
"You don't mean to insult me?" said the young man. "Hush--hush; you
don't know what you are saying. Not to be made Archbishop of
Canterbury, instead of Vicar of Skelmersdale. I don't understand how
you could suggest such a thing to me."
Miss Dora's veil, which she had partly lifted, here fell over her face,
as it had kept doing all the time she was speaking--but this time she
did not put it back. She was no longer able to contain herself, but wept
hot tears of distress and vexation, under the flimsy covering of lace.
"No, of course, you will not do it--you will far rather be haughty, and
say it is my fault," said poor Miss Dora. "We have all so much pride, we
Wentworths--and you never think of our disappointment, and how we all
calculated upon having you at Skelmersdale, and how happy we were to
be, and that you were to marry Julia Trench--"
It was just at this moment that the two reached the corner of
Prickett's Lane. Lucy Wodehouse had been down there seeing the sick
woman. She had, indeed, been carrying her dinner to that poor
creature, and was just turning into Grange Lane, with her blue ribbons
hidden under the grey cloak, and a little basket in her hand. They met
full in the face at this corner, and Miss Dora's words reached Lucy's
ears, and went through and through her with a little nervous thrill.
She had not time to think whether it was pain or only surprise that
moved her, and was not even self-possessed enough to observe the
tremulous pressure of the Curate's hand, as he shook hands with her,
and introduced his aunt. "I have just been to see the poor woman at
No. 10," said Lucy. "She is very ill to-day. If you had time, it would
be kind of you to see her. I think she has something on her mind."
"I will go there before I go to Wharfside," said Mr Wentworth. "Are
you coming down to the service this afternoon? I am afraid it will be
a long service, for there are all these little Burrowses, you know--"
"Yes, I am godmother," said Lucy, and smiled and gave him her hand
again as she passed him while aunt Dora looked on with curious eyes.
The poor Curate heaved a mighty sigh as he looked after the grey
cloak. Not his the privilege now, to walk with her to the green door,
to take her basket from the soft hand of the merciful Sister. On the
contrary, he had to turn his back upon Lucy, and walk on with aunt
Dora to the inn--at this moment a symbolical action which seemed to
embody his fate.
"Where is Wharfside? and who are the little Burrowses? and what does
the young lady mean by being godmother?" said aunt Dora. "She looks
very sweet and nice; but what is the meaning of that grey cloak? Oh,
Frank, I hope you don't approve of nunneries, and that sort of thing.
It is such foolishness. My dear, the Christian life is very hard, as
your aunt Leonora always says. She says she can't bear to see people
playing at Christianity--"
"People should not speak of things they don't understand," said the
Perpetual Curate. "Your Exeter-Hall men, aunt Dora, are like the old
ascetics--they try to make a merit of Christianity by calling it hard
and terrible; but there are some sweet souls in the world, to whom it
comes natural as sunshine in May." And the young Anglican, with a glance
behind him from the corner of his eye, followed the fair figure, which
he believed he was never, with a clear conscience, to accompany any
more. "Now, here is your inn," he said, after a little pause. "Wharfside
is a district, where I am going presently to conduct service, and the
little Burrowses are a set of little heathens, to whom I am to
administer holy baptism this Easter Sunday. Good-bye just now."
"Oh, Frank, my dear, just come in for a moment, and tell Leonora--it
will show her how wrong she is," said poor aunt Dora, clinging to his
arm.
"Right or wrong, I am not going into any controversy. My aunt Leonora
knows perfectly well what she is doing," said the Curate, with the best
smile he could muster; and so shook hands with her resolutely, and
walked back again all the way down Grange Lane, past the green door, to
his own house. Nobody was about the green door at that particular moment
to ask him in to luncheon, as sometimes happened. He walked down all the
way to Mrs Hadwin's, with something of the sensations of a man who has
just gone through a dreadful operation, and feels, with a kind of dull
surprise after, that everything around him is just the same as before.
He had come through a fiery trial, though nobody knew of it; and just at
this moment, when he wanted all his strength, how strange to feel that
haunting sense of an unnecessary sacrifice--that troubled new vein of
thought which would be worked out, and which concerned matters more
important than Skelmersdale, weighty as that was. He took his sermon out
of his pocket when he got home, and marked a cross upon it, as we have
already said; but, being still a young man, he was thankful to snatch a
morsel of lunch, and hasten out again to his duty, instead of staying to
argue the question with himself. He went to No. 10 Prickett's Lane, and
was a long time with the sick woman, listening to all the woeful tale of
a troubled life, which the poor sick creature had been contemplating for
days and days, in her solitude, through those strange exaggerated
death-gleams which Miss Leonora would have called "the light of
eternity." She remembered all sorts of sins, great and small, which
filled her with nervous terrors; and it was not till close upon the hour
for the Wharfside service, that the Curate could leave his tremulous
penitent. The schoolroom was particularly full that day. Easter,
perhaps, had touched the hearts--it certainly had refreshed the
toilettes--of the bargemen's wives and daughters. Some of them felt an
inward conviction that their new ribbons were undoubtedly owing to the
clergyman's influence, and that Tom and Jim would have bestowed the
money otherwise before the Church planted her pickets in this corner of
the enemy's camp; and the conviction, though not of an elevated
description, was a great deal better than no conviction at all. Mr
Wentworth's little sermon to them was a great improvement upon his
sermon at St Roque's. He told them about the empty grave of Christ, and
how He called the weeping woman by her name, and showed her the earnest
of the end of all sorrows. There were some people who cried, thinking of
the dead who were still waiting for Easter, which was more than anybody
did when Mr Wentworth discoursed upon the beautiful institutions of the
Church's year; and a great many of the congregation stayed to see Tom
Burrows's six children come up for baptism, preceded by the new baby,
whose infant claims to Christianity the Curate had so strongly insisted
upon, to the wakening of a fatherly conscience in the honest bargeman.
Lucy Wodehouse, without her grey cloak, stood at the font, holding that
last tiny applicant for saving grace, while all the other little
heathens were signed with the sacred cross. And strangely enough, when
the young priest and the young woman stood so near each other, solemnly
pledging, one after another, each little sun-browned, round-eyed pagan
to be Christ's faithful servant and soldier, the cloud passed away
from the firmament of both. Neither of them, perhaps, was of a very
enlightened character of soul. They believed they were doing a great
work for Tom Burrows's six children, calling God to His promise on their
behalf, and setting the little feet straight for the gates of the
eternal city; and in their young love and faith their hearts rose.
Perhaps it was foolish of Mr Wentworth to suffer himself to walk home
again thereafter, as of old, with the Miss Wodehouses--but it was so
usual, and, after all, they were going the same way. But it was a very
silent walk, to the wonder of the elder sister, who could not understand
what it meant. "The Wharfside service always does me good," said Mr
Wentworth, with a sigh. "And me, too," said Lucy; and then they talked a
little about the poor woman in No. 10. But that Easter Sunday was not
like other Sundays, though Miss Wodehouse could not tell why.